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eputation and (in the case of managing uncertainty) the law of large numbers, all favor the existence of financial intermediaries of various kinds.

The abstract principles just outlined apply to international financial centers as well as to remote villages. In any of these settings, if information is poor, if there are few potential market participants, if enforcement mechanisms are weak, then financial markets may be inefficient, limited, or even non-existent. The differences between the metro and the hamlet are often differences of degree and not of kind. Another very general aspect of financial markets, indeed of any markets, is that lack of competition hurts market efficiency. If either side of the market, or the intermediary, has disproportionate power, that party will earn excess returns at the expense of the less privileged market participants. This applies to village moneylenders and farmers in India, as it does to investment banks and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, or to the urban poor and pay-check-cashing companies in any number of US cities.

The most powerful means of increasing inclusiveness, or of democratizing finance, is to increase competition. This means not only increasing the number of providers of services, but also improving the information and capabilities of the users. The fact that many new mortgage borrowers in the US did not understand the contracts they were signing was a contributor to the subprime crisis. Dr Reddy is absolutely correct that improving financial literacy is important—though this must be seen in a context where even basic literacy is often missing. An overhaul of regulation is sorely needed, however, so that regulation is aimed at increasing disclosure, and allowing for appropriate escape clauses, rather than controlling suppliers of financial services so heavily that competition is stifled, along with all other incentives for efficiency.

Information technology is bringing down many of the costs of screening and monitoring, and is allowing new entrants to provide a wider array of financial services to rural India. Microfinance loans are being securitized and mini-insurance policies being offered. As growth trickles into rural India, the demand for financial products will increase, and the main constraints on supply are probably poor regulation and the existence of inefficient state-owned incumbents. It may be true that in the past, the state-owned financial institutions helped to get basic credit and deposit services down to the rural poor. But they have also been co-opted by the better-off, they have been wasteful and inefficient, and they have failed to innovate to meet emerging demands. Moneylenders, commission agents and other traditional rural intermediaries have continued to wield disproportionate power in markets for rural financial services. This will change with lowered transaction costs and lower entry barriers, and reform must be driven by these principles, and not introduce new controls. The Rajan committee report provides detailed ideas on, not so much the best way of making financial services more widely available and affordable, but on what the best way is, but rather on how to create a regulatory environment in which the best ways will emerge through competition and innovation.

INSURANCE SECTOR

The business of life insurance in India in its existing form started in India in the year 1818 with the estab